Nonsense Thread

[rturbo 930]

It's stuff like that that makes me want nothing whatsoever to do with new cars. The regulations are negatively impacting the design of the cars, they're too complicated, and increasingly too delicate, and also seemingly of a lower build quality, despite being overall more refined than cars of 30 years ago.

[varg]

It's a combination of things. Car companies don't care about longevity past warranty or serviceability, or how much time it takes you to replace the electromechanical thermostat. BMW financial services, toyota financial services, etc, that's the cash cow, new sales and the financing of those sales. The other thing is cost cutting/optimization. I deliberately steered clear of the automotive industry when starting my engineering career because I knew that a majority of the work now is just optimizing for production/cost cutting on boring normal cars I'd never want to drive. They're constantly optimizing designs and material choices for cost savings, getting as close as possible to the minimum cost part that lasts the warranty period. They aren't making oil pans and oil pump parts out of plastic, powering oil pumps with belts, and replacing controls and gauges with flat screens because those things are better.

My industry isn't perfect but at least I'm not working to actively ruin a hobby of mine.

[JasonWilson48]

I deliberately steered clear of the automotive industry when starting my engineering career because I knew that a majority of the work now is just optimizing for production/cost cutting on boring normal cars I'd never want to drive. They're constantly optimizing designs and material choices for cost savings, getting as close as possible to the minimum cost part that lasts the warranty period. They aren't making oil pans and oil pump parts out of plastic, powering oil pumps with belts, and replacing controls and gauges with flat screens because those things are better.

My industry isn't perfect but at least I'm not working to actively ruin a hobby of mine.

I had the same thought when I was younger and considered applying to be a salesman at a car dealership. I would be not be good at selling these cars because I wouldn't actually believe in the product I was selling them. I would have been trying to save the customer as much money as I could, and talked them out of the predatory financing and payment mentality. Probably would push all the old used cars as much as I could. Anyway, I became an engineer instead and my job is also not perfect, but not ruining my car hobby as well. Make enough money elsewhere to supplement what actually brings me joy.

[Northern]

I deliberately steered clear of the automotive industry when starting my engineering career because I knew that a majority of the work now is just optimizing for production/cost cutting on boring normal cars I'd never want to drive. They're constantly optimizing designs and material choices for cost savings, getting as close as possible to the minimum cost part that lasts the warranty period. They aren't making oil pans and oil pump parts out of plastic, powering oil pumps with belts, and replacing controls and gauges with flat screens because those things are better.

My industry isn't perfect but at least I'm not working to actively ruin a hobby of mine.

Same gurl.
Not that there's any Automotive sector work around here anyway, but when I did FSAE, some of the old Pittsburg team members were working for Ford and talking about how they basically designed christmas tree clips and were paid fuck all. They made it sound like when you got your P.Eng, your entire job became signing off on all the jank designs. The whole thing sounded fucking awful.

Happy to steer as clear of that shit as possible.

[MrBurgundy]

Something has to give with these new cars and how they're designed.

Even the reliable Japanese cars are becoming increasingly complex like their German counterparts.

Almost everything is turboed now. Even trucks... You can get a full-size truck with a turbo 4.

They're simping for EPA numbers. They will do anything for an extra .5 mpg.

At the same time they're adding all this extra weight via gay features and to compensate they're shaving weight from the engine by making everything out of plastic.

I had a 2017 Mercedes come in with a bad vacuum actuator for the waste gate. Mercedes doesn't sell it separately... 4k turbo and 1.5k install.

If it were sold separately the whole job probably would have been sub 400 bucks.

It's genuinely a shame

[econti]

I don't think it will. Firstly, emissions laws and the pursuit of economy are never ending.
But the bad reliability is in a sense self-serving. My low-tier conspiracy is that all the OEMs don't care about complexity and intentionally only sell stupid expensive components because they either make money on the parts if someone is dumb enough to pay for them, or it scares people off vehicles out of warranty so that they just buy a new one.
It's known that the vast majority of new cars are terribly unreliable, so people will only keep them for the warranty period. Oh, you don't want to pay for these outrageously expensive replacement items, but the car was great to drive? Perfect, let's just sell you a new one, roll that loan into a brand new something, and now you don't have to worry about it any more.

[MrBurgundy]

I don't think it will. Firstly, emissions laws and the pursuit of economy are never ending.
But the bad reliability is in a sense self-serving. My low-tier conspiracy is that all the OEMs don't care about complexity and intentionally only sell stupid expensive components because they either make money on the parts if someone is dumb enough to pay for them, or it scares people off vehicles out of warranty so that they just buy a new one.
It's known that the vast majority of new cars are terribly unreliable, so people will only keep them for the warranty period. Oh, you don't want to pay for these outrageously expensive replacement items, but the car was great to drive? Perfect, let's just sell you a new one, roll that loan into a brand new something, and now you don't have to worry about it any more.

Dealers now will quote people out the door thru service into the sales department.

New tactic I'm hearing about.

Don't want to foot the 5k bill? just put 5k down on a new car and that's it.

Payments for life. Will go well with your new 50 year mortgage